Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Did It Really Happen? Fact, Fiction, Fate

When Fiction Seems All Too True

October 5, 2015  By Leslie Pietrzyk - Literary Hub

I attended a reading today, where an author read from his debut collection of short stories. The audience was small, but highly appreciative; we were both in residence at a writer’s colony in a charming, artsy town. It was a lovely reading, and we laughed at the right places. Afterward, there was brief debate about whether the author should do a Q&A; he advocated that we all drink more wine instead, and in the blurry moments before the decision was made to skip the Q&A, someone called out a Q: “Did that story really happen?”

The author laughed, and said he made it up, and we went for wine and book-buying.
Why is that always the question fiction writers are asked? Why do readers insist on knowing if the story that held them enthralled was “real”?

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